Large stretches of salmon-spawning streams and thousands of acres of wetlands would be wiped out if a large-scale mining project were to be built in southwestern Alaska’s copper-rich Bristol Bay region, according to a report issued recently by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The report, while not directly addressing it, is a potential blow to the massive Pebble copper and gold mine operation proposed by an international alliance of mining interests, and opposed by environmentalists and local native groups.
The Pebble project involves Anglo American and Rio Tinto.
See http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/19/us-alaska-mine-idUSBRE84I00620120519.